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29 Mar 2017, 09:27

Hi, it would be nice if someone would take a couple of minutes to take look at my essays! I am purposefully posting essays that have some flaws, because I would like to hear your opinion on how serious those flaws are. Of course, the essays were written in 30 minutes and I did not correct anything.The first essay has a somewhat low wordcount - 333 words. I simply did not have enough good ideas.The second one has 451 words but is missing a conclusion.

So here they are, please let me know what you think.

Question 1: Some people believe that the Earth is being harmed (damaged) by human activity. Others feel that human activity makes the Earth a better place to live. What is your opinion? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

Earth is our home, and therefore it is important how we treat it. Some people believe that human activity causes damage to the Earth, while others disagree. Although there is some truth to both of these claims, in my view, human activity is mostly harmful to the Earth.First, human activity has severely damaged Earth’s ozone layer. The ozone layer serves to protect the Earth and all beings on it from negative effects of Sun’s radiation. By making holes in the ozone layer, humans have severely damaged the Earth. For example, holes in the ozone layers can damage certain animal species whose skin is not able to sustain prolonged exposure to radiation of the Sun. Also, exposure to radiation is harmful to certain microorganisms. When radiation kills those microorganisms, the survival of other species who feed on them is also brought into question. Therefore, damage done to ozone layer harms the whole ecosystem on Earth.

Second, human activity has significantly depleted some of the Earth’s most important resources. Again, this has caused irreversible damage to the Earth and all living beings on it. For example, humans use trees for heating or in production. Excessive tree cutting destroys many woods. This phenomenon is also known as deforrestation. Deforrestation leaves many animals without their natural habitat and as a consequence many of them are not able to survive. An example of this are many woods in Brazil. Also, by using the water resources in unsustainable way human activity has depleted or in some cases even drained certain lakes and rivers. Many species of fish have died out as a result. When Changes like this are done to environment, many other organisms feel negative consequences. When a lake is drained, the animals living around it are left without important source of water, which they need to survive.

Changes like these are ussually irreversible, meaning that damage they do to the Earth is often permanent. This is why I believe that human activity is harmful to the Earth.

Question 2: Neighbors are the people who live near us. In your opinion, what are the qualities of a good neighbor? Use specific details and examples in your answer.

Whether you live in a house or flat, it is highly likely that you have neighbors. Because we are affected by actions of people around us, how our neighbors behave is important. A good neighbor can make our lives significantly easier, while a bad one can make us miserable. In my view, there are several important characteristics a good neighbor must have.

First, a good neighbor is friendly. This does not necessarilly means that neighbors have to be friends. Rather, they should be kind and helpful to each other in everyday interactions. By behaving in this way they can create a healthy living environment where people are happy to seach other and arguments rarely occur. For example, I would say that I have great neighbors who live in the same building as I do. Because everyone is friendly to each other we meet a couple of times a month to get to know each other better and discuss issues related to our buiilding. As a result of those meetings, we have formed a good relationships and occasionaly help each other. A women who lives in the appartment next to mine is a doctor and she gave my dad an important medical advice which prevented him from getting a serious disease. On the other hand, I frequently buy groceries for the old lady who lives alone on the fifth floor. That is what good and friendly neighbors do, and I am very happy to live in such a building.

Second, good neighbors are unselfish. This is somewhat related to the idea that good neighbors are friendly, but it does not mean exactly the same thing. Being unselfish means that you do not put your own interests above everyone else’s. It means that you are agreeable. This is important because neighbors’ interests often clash. The most obvious example of a situation like this are decision regarding decoration of halls or exterior of buildindg, or some reparations that require spending money. If neighbors are selfish and do not want to contribute to finding solution to a common problem, then everyone suffers from their selfishness. Simmilar situation happens when one of the neighbors makes noise. In the old apartment where I lived we had a big problem with a selfish neighbors who used to throw a lot of parties and did not care if other people needed to sleep. It was wery uncomfortable and we even needed to call the police sometimes. This is what happens when you have bad neighbors, and situations like these can be almost impossible to solve – you can not force your neighbors to move out or change their character. That is why having a good and agreeable neighbor is important.

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29 Mar 2017, 14:22

Hi,

as i just saw that you replied to my post as well, i would also like to share my feedback regarding your 2 writing tasks with you.In general I had the feeling they are well structured and clear in their arguments.Sometimes I think that you could use even more concrete examples like e.g. a specific species that died out or a big company that is causing cutting trees (i had to think of McDonald`s immediately...). For me one of the most crucial findings was to emphasize on those examples, detail them and make them as concrete as possible while still showing the direct connection to your argument before.Maybe some input for making the first essay longer could be to give an outlook on what could happen to our earth when we keep on doing the harmful activities you discribed.The strongest paragraph of both essays was in my opinion the one about the "friendly neighbors".

Regarding scoring i have no experience - but i think they are both almost equally good.If i would have to guess i would say somewhere between 26-28, but this is really just a gut feeling.

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30 Mar 2017, 00:04

Paddy17 wrote:

Hi,

as i just saw that you replied to my post as well, i would also like to share my feedback regarding your 2 writing tasks with you.In general I had the feeling they are well structured and clear in their arguments.Sometimes I think that you could use even more concrete examples like e.g. a specific species that died out or a big company that is causing cutting trees (i had to think of McDonald`s immediately...). For me one of the most crucial findings was to emphasize on those examples, detail them and make them as concrete as possible while still showing the direct connection to your argument before.Maybe some input for making the first essay longer could be to give an outlook on what could happen to our earth when we keep on doing the harmful activities you described.The strongest paragraph of both essays was in my opinion the one about the "friendly neighbors".

Regarding scoring i have no experience - but i think they are both almost equally good.If i would have to guess i would say somewhere between 26-28, but this is really just a gut feeling.

BR,Patrick

Hey, thanks for the comment, it's really helpful! Regarding the examples, I guess I'll have to make it a habit to ask myself right questions when I get stuck. Why? How? Ok, then what? Tell me more, etc... The first essay is an example of what happens when you overcomplicate it and fail to settle with a simple example. Mc Donald's would definitely add ton of sentences.I did not think of global warming

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13 Jun 2017, 06:14

Hi,I had experience of IELTS preparation (similar to TOEFL test ). And I know for sure that 40 min isn't enough for pretty large piece of writing like that. My practical tip for you - make a short thesis plan what to write about. You should have a scheme to follow. And you should also practice writing on different topics. And good luck.